Deathworlds
by AnandaStarChild
Summary: Ginny must (*gasp*) embark on a highly dangerous quest to save her love, and THEN embark on the even more dangerous quest of making the relationship work. Fun, huh?
1. Death Becomes

Death Becomes

Deathworlds

Disclaimer: I own myself and my poetry. Unfortunately, neither are in this. So yes, J.K. Rowling owns all this stuff. (I'm not jealous! Really!!!) Oh, yeah. Except for the Overworld. I don't know who owns that, except for my guess of the God, Goddess, and everybody else, but I'm not about to start a flaming religious discussion. So yeah. Oh, yeah, I own Eya, too! *grins* And whomever else I decide to pull into this little thing...

A/N: This is a sequel to a story by my friend Genevieve (pen name Giliath) called Only In Dreams. Or something. It will probably still make sense if you haven't read Genevieve's story. Basically, it's a sequel to _Chamber of Secrets._ Tom Riddle has taken up residence in Ginny's head, and he secretly kissed her in the Chamber. Anyway, check out what Genevieve writes- it's reallyreally cool. I guarantee. She's a genius, seriously! By the way, Tom breaks his little silver thread- which is gold for wizards and witches in this story- while he's in the Overworld. Now, I _know_ that would kill a normal person, but remember? This is Tom Riddle! Oh, and by the way, I got writer's block around page twelve... that's not in this chapter, though... so if you have any suggestions, I'd appreciate them. I know this isn't my best writing. ANYway...

(Ahem? Where's my drum roll???) And presentING... 

The story without a good name! (c'mon people, CHEER!)

* * *

Chapter I: Death Becomes

__

'I'm still here,' he told her. 'I'll always be here.' Ginny shrank back against the coolness of a boulder, heart pounding with fear at the sight of him. Tom's mouth twisted into a smile, the blackness of his eyes capturing the girl. 

'I thought you were my friend,' she said, narrowing her eyes. 'I told you my secrets. I thought you were my friend.' Riddle laughed sardonically, wind tugging at his robe. 'I trusted you.'

'You knew you were gullible,' he replied. 'Don't expect me to apologize. You know who I am and who I became. I've killed more people than you know of and I didn't even finish with you. Be glad that your precious Harry Potter_ (here his expression contorted hatefully) came and rescued you before it was too late. Because I sure wouldn't have saved you.'_

'I know,' whispered Ginny, and turned.

She woke up curled in one of Madame Pomfrey's beds, slowly feeling more alive as time went by. From the still darkness of the night, she guessed it was very early in the morning, perhaps one or two AM, and the only sounds were the stirrings of other patients, perhaps waking from their basilisk- induced comas. Basilisk... Her dream came to her in a flash, and Ginny shivered beneath the blankets somebody had heaped upon her. They were much too warm, actually, but there was nothing like Voldemort to produce a chill in a person...

Perhaps a walk would help, she told herself, pulling the comforter close around her shoulders. Filch didn't exactly encourage students to wander the halls at night, but then, she found it hard to believe that Dumbledore would give her much of a punishment after her... ordeal. _I just won't be caught_, she told herself. _Anyhow, the twins have gotten in loads of trouble and nobody seemed to care!_

Her hand was startlingly pale against the wine-coloured velvet curtains enveloping the four-poster bed. Even her freckles seemed to have receded into the deathly whiteness her skin seemed to have taken on. In the cold brightness of the moon just after midnight, her face appeared ghostly in the mirror hung opposite her bed. Luckily, it seemed to be asleep and made no comment. Hogwarts mirrors could be rather insulting while they were awake. She glanced at it one more time, and reeled back in shock.

Tom Riddle's face stared back at her.

Ginny crumpled to the floor.

'You know, if you wanted to get away from me, fainting was not the best idea,' Riddle said conversationally, leaning against the moss-laden trunk of a tree stained silvery with moonlight.

'Look, I saw your face in the mirror. What was I supposed_ to do? Cluck like a chicken? It's not like I have control over when I faint. I doubt that even _you_ do, Mr. High-And-Evil Wizard. What were you doing there, anyway? And where the heck _is_ this place?' she replied, too irritated and tired to be scared. She stared him in the eye, leaning against a second tree nearly identical to his. Tom glanced at her, amused._

'Cluck like a chicken if you want. Anybody can learn to control their reflexes- possibly with the exception of some of those fluff-brained Muggles, but certainly a Gryffindor witch like yourself could. And I told you your dreams were too boring- this is the Forbidden Forest, and much more to my liking.' The girl was interesting when she stopped being a fearful bunny rabbit, Riddle mused. He could live with this arrangement, as long as he controlled the dreams. Maybe he'd even let her watch clouds, once in a while. She was worth keeping around...

'If you say so,' Ginny was replying. 'Now, will you please get out_ of my dream? I'd like to get some rest, thank you very much.' Riddle laughed, flicking the tip of the wand that had just materialized in his hand. _

'Fine. You can go have one of your butterfly dreams if you want... I have your entire life with you.' With that, the forest faded into the absurdity of a normal dream.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*

The next time Ginny awoke, it was morning, and sunlight was seeping through the cracks in the curtains. She sat up, repressing a groan as she discovered that all her bones ached horribly, and pulled herself to her feet. The mirror showed her to be much thinner than she ever remembered herself, and paler to boot. She was almost skeletal, she thought, blinking in surprise. Unfortunately, the mirror was away now. 

"Ach, you look horrible! What a sight!" it exclaimed. Typical of a Hogwarts mirror.

"Oh, you shut up," she told it irritably. "_You're_ not the one with an idiot floating around in your head." The day was not getting off to a good start. Ginny didn't think she could handle classes today, but there was nothing much else to do. Maybe she'd just sleep for a while...

This time, her dream appeared to be normal. Ginny glanced around at the scenery, searching for signs of Tom. She seemed to be in some kind of ballroom, only there were gilded pipes growing out of the walls. There didn't seem to be a floor, either. Looking down made her a bit nauseous, in fact. It was a sheer drop.

Some odd music was playing- it was a mix between the school song and something else, and was sung to some extremely tortured-sounding music. Eerie. She was waltzing slowly with a man she had not noticed before. He was wearing molding, lacy hot pink dress robes- rather like the ones Ron would have to wear, Ginny realized, giggling. Luckily, he was not her brother. She couldn't place him, actually. Something about him was familiar, but he wasn't anybody she knew. Including Harry, she thought mournfully. Brown hair, green eyes... Wait. That wasn't right! Now he had black hair. Black eyes. Tom Riddle??? Somehow, she wasn't alarmed, however. Ginny danced with him a while longer, looking around at the pipes and the huge mosaic of a flaming bird on the wall as they passed them. Things were taking on a quite surreal atmosphere, and Ginny realized she was looking down on herself and Tom from above. The figure which was she was wavering as she danced, and her steps were becoming more and more dreamlike. Still dancing, Riddle did not seem to notice, until finally, Ginny slumped to the floor. Although there wasn't one, exactly... Finally, Tom stopped dancing, looking down at the Ginny-heap with an unreadable expression on his face. He stooped to gather her up, brushing her hand with his lips, and let her fall. They vanished. Ginny was left looking at an empty ballroom for a second or two, and then everything disappeared. 

Ginny sat up in bed, breathing hard. Something had scared her- or no, not scared her. Then what was it? A dream? She couldn't remember... Something about Riddle. Only she had the feeling that it wasn't another dream like she had last night, but a more... normal... one. Shrugging, she tried to let it go, but the question still nagged at her.

Pulling back the heavy curtains for the third time that day, Ginny was informed by the mirror, in more ways than one, that she was still paler than normal, although the dark circles her eyes had sported this morning were fading. _Shouldn't I have returned to normal by now? _she asked herself, bewildered, as she stood up and stretched. _Madame Pomfrey must not have heard me wake up, or she'd be here. I wonder where she is, anyway? Probably tending to the basilisk victims,_ Ginny realized guiltily. She was not proud of the part she had to play in the attacks, however innocent. _Darn that Tom Riddle!_

As if summoned by her thoughts, Madame Pomfrey bustled into the room, dark circles identical to Ginny's gracing her eyes. "What are you doing awake!" she cried, alarmed. "Sit down, sit down! Now, you're going to have to rest a while to get better. Just lie down for a while," she said, ignoring Ginny's half-hearted protests. 

"But... I have nothing to do!"

"Rest, my dear, rest," Madame Pomfrey replied serenely. "Now, I can get you anything you like from the library, or you could take a bath right now. How's that?"

"Erm... Bath first," Ginny said, looking down at the filth that still clung to her. "But in the meanwhile, could you get some books about You-Know-Who for me?" Perhaps she could find some clue to the odd dream she did not remember in the books...

*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*

In the baths, the filth fairly floated off of her, turning the water in her vicinity grey within moments. An undine flitted anxiously over the water, looking worried as the water became dirtier and dirtier. Ginny blushed, sinking deeper beneath the iridescent bubbles flowing from a brass faucet- the first-years usually did not get such luxuries, but Madame Pomfrey, too Ginny's great relief, judged it better to let her use the teachers' baths to avoid other, potentially curious, students. They were private and lit only by a few torches in wall sconces, making Ginny feel all the more secure. Interaction with Madame Pomfrey, the mirror, and Tom was more than enough for her, right now. Having your brain invaded by somebody who had tried to kill you was rather draining.

The water was warm... divine... firelight and shadows flickered over Ginny's eyelids as she sank back against the edge of the tub. So peaceful... She was in an almost trance-like state, floating in the water, feeling almost weightless. An image began to gather at the edges of her vision... 

Ballroom.

...

Coughing up water, Ginny pulled herself up into a sitting position. _He... kissed me??? _Tom Riddle_ kissed _me_??? _Kissed _me? Lord Voldemort doesn't have a heart, though! How could Tom?_

I don't understand.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*


	2. Serpency

Serpency

Chapter II: Serpency

__

Happily munching lemon drops, Albus Dumbledore was almost enveloped by his worn, overstuffed chair, which looked as if it had been magenta velvet _some_ time in the past, but certainly wasn't anywhere near as grand any more! He was almost asleep, having conjured up the voice of a woman singing about the Goddess of rabbits. Fawkes' feathers were gilded with a brilliant, fiery orange reminiscent of smoldering coals, and only a contented murmur emitted from his cage in the corner of the room. Dumbledore probably _would_ have fallen asleep just then, if not for the rather nervous-sounding rapping at his door that came just then. "Erm... hello?" he called. The door creaked open slowly, just about an inch, and a scared little eye peered in. When Dumbledore just smiled at the eye, its owner crept in, looking as if she thought herself quite out of place in the headmaster's office. "Well, hello! It's Ginny, isn't it? I seem to have forgotten my glasses somewhere... Ah, that's better," he declared, summoning a pair of silver half-moon spectacles with a flick of his wand. "I can't seem to keep track of these dratted things! Now, what were you going to say?"

"Well... um... I was just wondering if you could tell me anything about Tom Riddle..." Ginny stammered, playing with the brim of her hat. Dumbledore stared at her piercingly, a knowing glint in his eye. "Umm... because I want to know more about him, you know? After all, he _did_ nearly kill me, it's perfectly normal for me to want to know more, right?" she added rather quickly, seeing the look on the headmaster's face.

"Yes, yes, of course... But why don't you put that hat down? It doesn't need to be wrung out quite yet... I _could_, however, make it so...

"Now, why don't you take a seat? Oh, no chair? Here you go!" With a twitch of his wand, Dumbledore had conjured up a chair in the exact spot where she had been standing until an invisible hand popped her onto the worn cushions. "Now, where would you like me to start?"

"Erm... the... beginning, sir..."

"The beginning? Well, I suppose that would be when he came to Hogwarts. Only eleven then, and already so tall... He was almost put in Gryffindor, you know. Sat there for nearly ten minutes with the poor Sorting Hat on his head. I think the Hat saw something of what was going to happen. She wasn't the same for years after that...

"He wasn't always Lord Voldemort, though. There was a time when he was almost decent. Almost likeable. But then every time you'd start to believe you'd invented the meanness you remembered him as having, his eyes would go cold. And you'd learn to stay away from him then... Things happened to his friends. In the beginning, in his second or third year at Hogwarts, it would just be disappearances An assignment, perhaps. A quill. A textbook. Little things. After a while, though, it got worse. Accidents. A potion would go wrong and somebody would get hurt. Spend a day with Madam Pomfrey, perhaps. The accidents kept getting worse, though... Broken bones. A broom vanished in midair one day, January it was, while Nathaniel Rosen was on it, practicing for the Quidditch match. One good seeker he was in his time. The odd Slytherin who didn't go bad. 

"That was when Tom was in his fifth year. Nearly sixteen... The first death didn't happen for almost a year. I think that scared him, seeing his friend fall from the sky like that. Seeing him crumpled on the ground. Nothing serious happened for more than ten months after that. That Halloween, a student dissapeared.

"We never found the body.

"Missing, they said. We looked for years. Nothing turned up. People began to avoid Riddle, though. A few years later, he changed his name and became Lord Voldemort.

"It must have been just before he first killed that Tom enchanted his diary. You were lucky in that. If he had more power, he would have killed you. He almost did.

"He loves you, you see. He has to prove something to himself. He's not going to let himself love after all he's gone through. It hurts too much. So he kills everyone he loves..."

Dumbledore's voice had been growing more and more distant as he spoke. Ginny had seen him age years as he spoke. Now, he stared off into the distance, and Ginny crept out of the room, face drained of blood.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*

Outside the door, Ginny fell apart. Crumpled to the floor. _OK, it's bad enough that Tom wants to kill me. But... he loves me? I... I don't know. What am I going to do?_

I need to talk to him. I need to sleep. 

*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*

Ginny wandered... She was looking for something. Somebody. She couldn't quite remember whom... Her footfalls echoed through the empty halls. Darkness surrounded her like velvet, muffling her thoughts. The cape she wore was much too long for her, and its silken hems were unfamiliar beneath her fingertips. Spidersilk it was, and much too grand for a Weasley. Perhaps she stole it, she thought, but dismissed the idea. If she'd gone through the trouble of stealing something so beautiful, she'd at least make it fit. Not that she'd steal anything in the first place...

Her footsteps took her into the Hogwarts library. Strange- she hadn't noticed that she was at Hogwarts! Maybe she was going to look for the diary here. Maybe she had just dreamed that it had been killed... Can diaries be killed? Maybe they're immortal. Or maybe it was a vampire diary... Harry didn't burn it, did he? A basilisk fang is kind of like a stake... but don't you have to burn vampires, too, to kill them? Or was that just Muggle legend?_ She should have paid more attention to her Defense against the Dark Arts class. It was too late now... soon school would be out... and then she'd be a second year..._

The Restricted Section. Why was she in the Restricted Section? She tried to move her feet, but they weren't responding... A note of panic filled her mind and rippled out into the darkness. She'd heard all kinds of tales about Restricted books. Screaming, biting, killing ones... You weren't supposed to open one unless you knew for sure what it was. There were books that disguised themselves as other books, just so they could catch you unawares. Rather like the diary_, she thought dryly. But no. She wasn't looking at any of these books. Instead, it seemed she was looking for somebody among the bookshelves. _Well, good,_ she thought. _Maybe now I'll know who I'm looking for.

It looked as if she had found him. Someone in a long, hooded cape was reading a thick volume at the end of this row of shelves. He must have heard her footsteps, because he turned just then and glanced at her without surprise. 'Well, good. You've found my robes. Here, hand them to me.' The spidersilk garment she wore floated off her shoulders and into the hands that emerged from the folds of the cloak. The hood slipped down, and she finally saw the person she'd been searching for...

'Tom?' Of course. 'What are you doing here?'

'What are you_ doing here? Here, put this on,' he said, handing her the cloak. She blushed, realizing that she had apparently not been wearing anything beneath Tom's cape. At least he didn't seem to care... _

'I was looking for you. You could at least thank_ me for bringing you your robes. Where did you get them, anyhow? I thought you were poor, Tommykins dearest,' she said sarcastically, feeling dizzy as the heat receded from her face. Tommykins? Where'd that come from?_

'You don't have to act so derisive, little Ginny. I know you love me... Tommykins, indeed.'

Wait. How'd he guess?_ Ginny blushed deeper, glad that Tom couldn't see exactly _how_ deep in the darkness. 'OK. So I love you. I admit it. So, are you still going to kill me?'_

Tom started. He hadn't expected this... 

'I don't know. I don't know if I can kill you, little Ginny.'

*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*

Ginny awoke, mortified. _I love you??? What was I _thinking_??? I can't love him... He doesn't have a heart. Dumbledore must have been wrong. He has to be wrong. Because if he isn't..._

Well, I don't know what then.

She pulled herself up out of bed, whispered through the hallways and up staircases. She had to talk to Dumbledore again, _had_ to-

*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*

Meanwhile, Tom sat in the Chamber of Secrets, eyes open but sightless, mind unaware of his surroundings. Neither the dampness of the blocks of cold, gray stone seeping through the thin silk of his cape nor the musty smell of mud and mold seemed to register with him... 

The silence was overwhelming, as usual. There was only the quiet _drip, drip_ of water falling somewhere far away, and the merest vibrations of footfalls from the floors above. Tom's mind echoed this stillness, because he was far away. Distant.

__

He fled upward in snake form, a streak of green hurtling through the night. His eyes were diamond-hard, seeming to cut a brilliant swath through the darkness. Time sped up, accelerated until he was passing stars so quickly they were naught but streams of light- and then he broke through into Grey. The Overworld.

Alone. A golden thread, tenuous and silken, bound him to his body. Impatiently, he jerked it, and it split neatly in two. 'Now, you stay there,' he told it absentmindedly, already slithering off into the haze. 

The slithering wasn't necessary, however. A moment later, he thought_ and was transported to a circle of stones just as tenuous-looking as the spirit-thread. These shimmered an odd blue. They weren't bright, but Tom felt the urge to turn his eyes away, to look somewhere else. Curbing that desire, he stepped through a gap between two stones. And then there was a man._

'Ah. Tom Riddle. What a dubious pleasure,' the man said, his mouth twisting sardonically under a white beard. 'So, what brings you here, dear student, to profane this sacred circle?'

'Eya, you know very well I didn't come to mess up your precious circle. If I had, those bloody stones wouldn't've let me in. I just got out of my diary and wanted to pay you a visit. You know, rehash the good old times,' Riddle said, melting back into his human form. 'Actually, I wanted to ask for your- advice. As much as it hurts my pride to be consorting with the likes of you. But you're good, and I'm evil, and there are things good can see easier than evil. I don't want to go through the work.'

'Ah. So... this is a matter of love? My darling Born Again Dark Lord, fallen in love? Why, to think of it!' Eya said, grinning.

'Fallen in love??? Not me! Sir Guru, you've gotten things seriously wrong here. It's just this little second-year at school... she's got this, you know, crush_ on me and I don't want to hurt her. Girls are so delicate. I'm not in love with her at all. Just playing along. So I thought I'd visit my old teacher and ask his opinion. In retrospect, I don't think that was such a good idea,' Tom said, wincing as he saw the smirk on Eya's face. _

'Tom, you know you love her. Just tell her, okay? It's not like it's going to kill you. Think of it as a test of your manhood. If you HAVE one, that is...'

'What?' Tom sputtered, glaring at his ex-teacher. 'Of course I'm a man. And I have a manhood, thank you very much. That_ has survived perfectly. Now, _your_ old one might not have, but- Whatever. Okay, okay, I'll-'_

WHITE.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*


	3. Nothingness

Nothingness

Chapter III: Nothingness

Ginny stared guiltily at her hands. _What if he does love me,_ she wondered, mind-voice small. _What if he does? What if he does, and I've hurt him? He can't be as impenetrable as he seems, _she thought. _I'll bet it's all an act. And poor Tom thinks I hate him... He must be hurting horribly. Must be in that awful Chamber of Secrets, feeling sorry for himself. Poor Tom! _"Poor Tom," she whispered to the spiral staircase. "Poor Tom. I'm sorry!" With a start, she realized which Headmaster of Hogwarts' staircase she was still on, and blushed. Scuttling down the sharp curves of the flight, she couldn't avoid waking several sleeping portraits, one of an Arab wearing a strange, stereotypical turban who gave her the evil eye, but she was only glad that they had not been conscious to hear her words. "Sorry- sorry- sorry," she muttered towards the paintings, and then, reaching the hallway, ran.

Hogwarts was behaving especially- interestingly- today. Ginny had stumbled into two dead ends, a door to the room she had just left, a room with no floor (OUCH!), and a carnivorous gateway before she reached Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Myrtle was away for once, probably shopping for toilets, and Ginny had the whole bathroom to herself. "Shhhhhhhhhhsssssssss," she hissed at the sink, trying to sound like a snake. "Oh, bloody shit, this isn't working! _Now_ what do I do?" The bathroom was so still her words were thrown back to her: _Now what do I do... nowhat do-I-do... do..._ Of course. The trusty Hogwarts echoes. "Lovely." _Ovly... ovely... ly... ly... _"Gods, I wish you'd shut up! Now, let's try one more time. Shhhhhhhhhsssssssss..." _hsssssssssssssssss.... hsssssssssss.... sssssss... _"Dammit, will you _please-_"

"Shut up," she was going to say, but something stopped her. For- by some weird trick of fate, or of Hogwarts- the echoes had twisted her words, and the Chamber of Secrets was opening.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*

"Tom? Tom? To-om!" she called out, recoiling from the vast snake-statues. "Oh, shit!" she said crossly, stumbling into a cobweb. "Just- OK, _lumos_. That's better!" The tip of her wand, now, was glowing with a strange, unearthly radiance quite unlike the light she'd made aboveground. "Tom?" Rats squealed as she walked, darting beneath her feet like earthbound bats, trailing their flashes of hairless tails. "Tom?" Ginny couldn't help but lift the hem of her robes from _whatever_ it was that was squishing beneath her feet, but she didn't even wince. Not once. And then she saw the black silk twisting out across the floor, black spidersilk that could only be Tom's. _That's_ when she screamed.

His eyes were open, yes. Or at least his eye_lids_ were- there was only white, now, staring out at the small Gryffindor as she ran to their owner. "Tom!" He wasn't responding. "Tom! Please!" She was shaking him, shaking him, and his head just rolled back and forth on his neck like a rubber mannequin- "Tom!" 

__

Oh, please, Tom, please wake up, please...

*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*

__

White, white...

He knew what had happened. Somebody had touched him, or startled him, or his body had died- he shuddered. And now he was lost in this horrible WHITEness, even less than the vast grey of the Overworld. He could feel souls darting around him, nearly touching but getting only close enough to tantalize, souls of lost witches and wizards, foolish or powerful enough to break that golden thread. Some were Muggles, maybe, those learning a different kind of magic, one far less pure and which Tom scorned, but must were witches, wizards, Magical folk. And they swirled around him in droves, screaming and crying out into this utter blank_ness, trying to taste him, to touch him, to bring him close enough to them to be _real_- but they couldn't. They'd been doing this for millions of years, for millennia without end, humans, elves, gnomes, giants... They had touched no-one. All was in vain, and the expanse was empty with that vanity..._

*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*

She'd inched up that slide of a pipe, through the dirt and grime of ages, broke out into the blinding brightness of the torch-lit bathroom. Blinding, even thought it was lit with only one torch. Moaning Myrtle was not big on light, said Dumbledore, and so most of the torches had been removed years before, for which Ginny was now glad. Shielding her eyes, she shoved open the door with her shoulder and ran. To where? To what? To whom? _She_ had no idea, no idea at all, she just had to run. Run. RUN. Tom, Tom was dying, or dead, or dreadfully sick, and it was all _her_ fault for pretending to hate him, all _her_ fault. She only ran for a moment, or maybe it was two moments, or an hour, she didn't know and Hogwarts was so confusing- she ran, ran, and slammed into a door, magnificent and oaken. Fell to the floor. She was trying to skitter away like the mice she'd seem in the Chamber, but she had so little energy, she was about to sleep-

And sleep she did.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*

__

Ginny? Ginny? Ginny Weasley? Through a haze of dreams, she heard someone. _Go away_, she tried to say, _go away, I don't want to be bothered. I need to do something, I need to do this, go away..._

Against her will, faces swam in and out of view. She seemed to have opened her eyes, and they felt leaden. Or else this was another dream-

__

Tom? Tom, are you here? Is this a dream? Come on, Tom, stop hiding! Come back!

Well, it wasn't a dream, all right. Her throat was dry, sandy, and her face felt like the Sahara Desert, full of ridges and creases and baked brown by an unforgiving sun. Her brother Bill had been there. Was it this year or the last?-

"Ginny? Ginny?" The voice from her dream. There was something familiar about it... "Ginny, can you hear me? It's me, Ron. Your brother? Ginny, your eyes are open, I _know_ you can see me!"

"Ronald, she's your sister! She's sick! How do you know she can see you? I'm sure she'd say something if she could!" said another familiar voice testily.

"Mum, she ran into a _door_. That's not really gonna hurt her, is it? A bloody _door!_"

"Ronald Weasley! You close your mouth or-"

"Mum? Ron?" Ginny's words came out dry and slow, like crystallized syrup. "Drink!" Something cold and rounded was pushed to her lips, and in a second or two, she saw it was a cup. Swallowing, she stared up at the hedge of faces surrounding her. Dumbledore, McGonagall, Percy, Fred and George, Ron, Mum and Dad, Madam Pomfrey, even Harry and Hermione. And, of course, that Colin Creevy who kept following Harry around. 

"Ginny! What _happened_?" Mrs. Weasley shrieked, covering her daughter in kisses. "After that chicken blood and that diary thing and- and- are you _okay?_" Ginny nodded trying to remember what had happened. 

"Well, I was going to the girl's bathroom because-" Ginny coughed, realizing she _probably_ didn't want to tell her parents why. Not if she wanted to have heart attack-free parents for the next few years. "-because... I needed to go to the bathroom. And, um, Hogwarts pulled this trick on me and I ended up slamming into a big door..." _Oh, geeze, just get out of here, _please_,_ she thought, throwing a pleading look at Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey. Apparently, they understood.

"Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, I'm quite sorry, but, as you can see, Ginny is going to be alright. Now, in order for your daughter to _fully_ recover, it would be best if you and your guests leave now. In light of the alarming diary incident last week, we have determined that she must get as much rest and silence as she can," Dumbledore said in the most- and _only-_ official voice the group had ever heard from him. It convinced all but Ginny that he was serious; it convinced Ginny herself that something was up. Dumbledore was _never_ serious...

So she wasn't that surprised when Dumbledore drew her away. Alarmed, yes, but surprised, no. 

"Ginny? Are you okay?" he inquired, sitting on a hideous orange velvet chair he'd just Summoned. He drew the curtains halfway shut and leaned back, twitching the end of his nose.

"Yeah."

"Ginny, what did you come to tell me? Don't say _nothing_. You knocked your head against the door of my meditation room. Ginny, nobody but myself is supposed to be able to _get_ to the meditation room! Hogwarts must have decided that you had something urgent to report to me- either that, or you've suddenly got a talent for very dangerous, advanced Dark Wizardry. Tell me." 

Dumbledore stared at her. And stared at her. And stared. Nervous and blushing, Ginny began to talk, her voice wavering, unsteady, small.

"Professor Dumbledore? Can you keep a secret?" At a silver-bearded nod, she kept on talking. "Well, I have this... friend. Professor Dumbledore, he's a little weird. And I... was going down to the Chamber of Secrets, Hogwarts made my voice like a snake's and it opened, and he was there and he didn't move and his eyes were all white and I shook him but he _still_ didn't move and... I don't know what to do and I'm scared and, oh, Professor Dumbledore, please help me!" Ginny cried, her hair seeming to turn redder against the pale sheets. "Please, Professor Dumbledore!"

"I'll see what I can do," the headmaster said gravely. "Now, take me down."

*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*

__

His mind was decaying. He could feel it. Soon, it would be nothing more than another ravenous mind, swirling in the blankness. Soon, he'd be fragmented: sexless, mindless, voiceless, maddened. Hunger.

He could feel the others coming closer, like ghost-sharks circling bleeding prey. They pressed against him, dashed their selves again and again against whatever invisible wall separated them. He fought, fought, but could feel that wall growing weaker, could feel hairline cracks along it where it had been shattered by the onslaught of minds. 

Voiceless...

*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*

Water dripped perpetually from the stones that made up the ceiling of the Chamber of Secrets. The blocks were slick and clammy, and every so often, beads of precipitation would gather and snake downwards, leaving a glossy trail behind them. Rats chittered and squealed from the corners of the room, and a lone spider or two spun silent, dusty webs in the doorways.

Here and there, squat stone vessels sat like hunchbacked gnomes, huddled in the shadows. Trailing out from beneath one of them was a long, silken twist of cloth, blacker than all the shadows combined and just as lethal. Every so often, a rat would dart up to it, sniffing at the silk curiously, and scurry away again at the smell of not-quite-human on it.

A patter of footsteps a few floors above sent the rats to the edges of the room, quivering excitedly. Minutes passed- one, two, and they began to relax, pushing their noses out from tipped-over urns. Something wasn't right, though...

"Tom?" The voice quavered, bouncing of stone walls. "Tom?" There were two kinds of footfalls, now, and both in the Chamber, some distant part. "Tom?" The rats hid again, listening to the thumps of feet hitting stone: light, quick ones, and slightly heavier ones, slower and surer. "Tom?" 

__

Shhhhhhhsssssssss...

Ginny and Dumbledore turned the corner, a drawn, ancient look on her face and mild curiosity and wariness on his. She couldn't, at first, find the silken trail, and the room began to crash in on her, but silently, Dumbledore pointed it up, and this crazy desperation to find him was replaced by the crazy desperation to make him _well. _"Tom?" she called plaintively, sounding quite like a small child, but there was no reply. Dispiritedly, she lead the headmaster behind the great stone vessel, where, for the first time, it struck her that Tom _should not_ have been here, in the flesh.

Awed and frightened, she stroked his hand, gingerly caressing blue veins and near-invisible hairs. The skin was paler than in dreams, and their was a slight flush too his cheeks. She wasn't sure whether or not to be scared. She only knew that his presence evoked a deep, longing, dark place in her, a place that wasn't love, as she thought at first. Something Else.

"Ah. Tom Riddle," Dumbledore said matter-of-factly, turning to face Ginny after he'd taken Tom's pulse. "Interesting."

"T-Tom Riddle? How- how'd you know? Don't kill him, Professor Dumbledore! He's not that bad, really he isn't!"

"Of course I won't kill him, Ginny. I know that he's not Voldemort, I know that perfectly well. But _you-"_ _Only love would have saved him from Harry, Ginny. We'd thought that was the one thing he'd never have..._

"I just wanted to help him, really I did! Only I didn't at first," Ginny pled, alternating from glancing at Dumbledore's face and staring at the floor. "Harry killed the diary, and then Tom came into my dreams... He's different from what he seems, Professor Dumbledore! You told me yourself he's still human!"

__

Yes, it's love. Strange-this is the girl he tried to kill. One would think... But one can't be correct forever. "Don't worry. Even Tom could have changed, and I'm willing to take that into account. We had the same teacher, you know. Eya. He's taught all the finest minds for thousands of years. It was quite a shock when Tom went to the Dark... He'd always been precocious, engaging, intelligent. We never thought he'd desert us. But one can't be correct forever. Anyhow, it sounds like we've a problem here. What happened?" Dumbledore looked earnestly into Ginny's eyes, and, bit by bit, she felt herself relaxing. Slowly.

"He was in my mind, _inside_ my mind, since the Chamber of Secrets. And I thought he was just going to stay there... But then something-" (Ginny blushed) "-happened and I knew he was in the Chamber and I came down to talk to him but he wasn't moving and he wasn't talking to me so I _shook_ him and he still wouldn't move! And his eyes are all white!"

Dumbledore watched Ginny for a moment, then, twirling the end of his beard between his fingers, gazed thoughtfully at Tom. Finally, he spoke. "This isn't looking good. His spirit isn't here. He must have gone up into the Overworld and broken off from his body- _very_ dangerous. When you shook him, he should have come down, if he was still attached to his body, but if he wasn't... he was thrown into the Deathworlds. You're the only one who can find him."


	4. Deathworlds

Chapter IV: Deathworlds  
  
A/N: This chapter contains what one may or may not choose to interpret as hints of homosexuality. I have my own ideas about what, exactly, it is (hint: Mercedes Lackey. Firesong. Silverfox. Really, really old.) and I don't really care if you have a problem with it or not. I might decide to expand on it in upcoming chapters, but whatever. Flames welcomed, thank you very much! Also, it brings God and whatever in, as well- not very well, but it does. If you're not Pagan and have problems with multiple Gods, or if you're Pagan and have problems with stuff that could be considered Christian, that's not my problem, it's yours. Thus warned, thou mayest continue reading. 

  
* * *

  
Ginny paled, staring at the Headmaster. "I have to _what?"_  
  
"Save him. I can help you, of course, but for the most part, you're on your own. I think I know where he's gone, but you're the only person who will be able to go from there. If you're lucky, he will have left some trace of himself there. You'll have to follow this trail to get to the Deathworld he's gone to. You, as the one who sent him there, will have the rare opportunity to venture there yourself. Unfortunately, you won't be able to bring your body, of course, and there are plenty of minds who are going to want to prey on your life..."   
  
Ginny coughed, opening her mouth to say something. Before she could, however, Dumbledore raised a finger, the wrinkles of his face growing deeper as he spoke. "Now, I really wish I could teach you a bit more, but this is a matter of extreme urgency." With that, he withdrew his wand from a fold in his sleeve, pointed it at Ginny, and yelled "_Excorpus!_"  
  
Gracefully, and with more strength than he should have had, he caught her as she fell.

  
* * *  


__

There was a flash of nearly tangible darkness, a sense of rushing, and then she was There. It was like breaking through from air into water into this, the greyest of worlds, the vastest, the most subjective. Overworld, she whispered, thrilling at the sense that her voice was somehow more real than anything around her. In a moment, there was another figure on the horizon, and then the same was next to her, somehow having walked all that distance in an instant. A man: He could not have been called handsome, she supposed, but there was an air of intimacy about him, something that made her feel as if he was a long lost friend. She couldn't quite pinpoint his age- it seemed to fluctuate between old and young, without him ever changing. There was something familiar about him, as well...  
  
'Ginny?' he asked, smiling at her.  
  
'Do I kn- Of course! Professor Dumbledore!' Ginny cried delightedly, smiling back. 'But why do you look so- different?'  
  
Grinning broadly, the headmaster pointed at her form. Puzzled, she looked down, and then uttered an exclamation of surprise. The body that met her eyes was quite different from her earthly one. Tall and somehow misty, she had an expanse of not-quite-palpable energy springing from her shoulder blades and flowing outward, forming the impression of wings. Her hair was, for once, mildly under control, and red-gold waves hung down her back, which was, incidentally, quite a bit narrower than before. She was dressed in some sort of silken robe, through which a silvery-gold cord emerged from the level of her navel. 'Next time,' Dumbledore said, a twinkle in his young-old eyes, 'you're going to have to imagine up the robe for yourself.' While Ginny stuttered and blushed, the twinkle and smile fell from his face, and he looked very grave again. 'Now, I just did the Excorpus spell on you. It's illegal, in most cases, and performing it on Muggles is right up on the level of Avada Kevadra, because many don't know how to return to their bodies. However, the Ministry- before that pathetic Cornelius took over- gave me permission to use it as I see fit, which I did in this case. Now that we're up here, there are two things you need to know. First off, never let that cord be broken. It's your tie to your body. Some very- egotistical, if you'll pardon me- wizards break it when they feel they have attained the immunity necessary to venture into the Overworld without being harmed and the intuitive connection to find their body again. Tom Riddle wasn't the kind who would do that. He must have been nervous, sick, or otherwise addled when he came up here...' Again, Dumbledore stared with those piercing eagle-eyes of his at his student, who blushed a third time. 'Secondly, anything you tell yourself is true will be true here. You are able to transform your body into whatever shape you wish, and it was your deepest wish and truest essence that created the form you carry. Again, you really_ want to make sure to imagine clothes on yourself. It can be a bit embarrassing if you don't.  
  
'Anyhow, I'm going to move us to the place where Riddle may have gone. Don't get scared. It will be quite sudden.'  
  
Sudden it was. That was when the world- or Overworld- disintegrating. Or, at least, Ginny had a sense that it had disintegrated. It took only an instant, and they were There. There...  
  
The place, she reflected, definitely deserved a capital T. It both welcomed and repelled her, somehow, the blue glow of the stone circle casting a strange light against her face. It had an air of wisdom, of age, and Ginny seemed to hear voices chanting somewhere deep beneath the surface of her mind, even below her innermost consciousness. It soothed her, although Dumbledore went on as if he heard it not at all.  
  
'Eya?' She heard the call echoing outwards, and with a start, realized that it was unspoken. 'Eya, it's Purple Moose.'  
  
'Oh, you again,' came the reply, and a shadow began to form in the direct center of the circle. Slowly, it gathered darkness and light from some unknown source, and features were discernable. A man, and an old one at that, Ginny thought, but after a moment she couldn't be sure- like the Headmaster's, Eya's age was indiscernible, seeming at one moment to be quite a bit younger than at the next. He was tall, with wide blue-green eyes and blond hair that fell to his shoulders, and, at the moment, had a smirk on his face. Grinning at his former student, the teacher transformed into a shorter, white-bearded man dressed in some sort of coarse, brown, hooded robe. Looking far too grave for the smirk that had been on his face just a moment before, he bowed, drawling the words 'Luke, I am your father.'  
  
'Oh, Gods,' moaned Dumbledore, rolling his eyes. 'Been watching too many Muggle movies, have we? That's Darth's line, anyway.'  
  
'Hey, I never said my brand of humor was sense-laden. Or humorous, to think of it. Now, who have we here? Please say it's not another student. I'm so nicely retired...'  
  
'No, not a student, I'm afraid. It's something much worse. This is a student of mine, Ginny Weasley. She needs to rescue Riddle. He's disappeared, and-'  
  
'Oh, so she was the one who disturbed him? He just showed up a few minutes ago, which was rather surprising, of course, considering his nature, and we were having a conversation about some girl he seems to have a crush on. He faded in the middle of a sentence. Quite rude, I thought it. Never should have taught that boy. He couldn't learn to respect his elders, in all the time I was his teacher! You'll want my help, I presume?'  
  
'Of course. You're the greatest, are you not? Since this is your beloved circle of stones, we'd like you to trace Riddle for us. You still have the Gatherstone, correct?'  
  
'The greatest, yes. Gatherstone, yes. It's that one, right there, with the runes-'  
  
Albus quickly located the stone, which was engraved with odd, pink-glowing symbols. 'Keystones, please?' he asked, and was handed a large, silken pouch which clacked as it exchanged hands. Touching the Gatherstone with his wand, he yelled 'Energis!,' upending the pouch. Hundreds of fingernail-sized glass orbs fell out of it, bouncing soundlessly around the circle for what seemed like ages. When they settled, covering most of the area around the three shades, Dumbledore sighed, rolled his eyes, and, still with the tip of his wand against the stone, dryly instructed the Gatherstone to 'show only the last day, dolt!' Reluctantly, most of the marbles rolled back to the Gatherstone and then up, back into the pouch the Headmaster held open. Left were only five of the glass orbs: Beneath Ginny's feet was a silver-glazed one, engraved with a symbol Ginny couldn't quite make out, for all she bent down and squinted at it. Next to it had rolled a second, black with a hint of gold, one which made Ginny shiver, and it was not all unpleasant. She could see the etching on this one, a sort of angular P- shape that glowed faintly green. Two more lay near the rock which Eya lounged against, and the fifth Dumbledore rolled in his hand, squinting at the purple symbol like an inverted Muggle peace sign without the circle drawn around it. Ginny had the sense that he couldn't see his, either.  
  
'Where's Riddle's?' Dumbledore asked, looking up from the sphere rolling lazily in his hand. He didn't have to look far, however; Ginny stood right next to him, and the black marble was, of course, Tom's. Dumbledore picked it up gingerly, careful not to touch the engraving, and shivered. Again, he seemed unfathomably old and weary. 'You gave him Thurisaz,' was all he said, voice worn and cracking. Ginny, wide-eyed, watched as Eya closed his eyes, touching his fingertips gently to his forehead. After a second or two of this uneasy silence, Eya creaked to his feet and moved to embrace Dumbledore, the two men almost holding each other up. They swayed gently, at the mercy of some wind felt only by the two, and as untold   
minutes passed, Ginny grew more and more uncomfortable. She was watching something utterly private, something with years of emotion shielding it. She crouched down and began to examine the marbles, taking an embarrassed peek at her headmaster and his- whatever- every now and then. Finally, she heard the rustle of parting, and, stretching as if she'd been crouching for quite some time, stood.  
  
'I may have given him Thurisaz, but you're Elhaz,' Eya said, a shadow of a grin curling on his face. 'What's done is done. Our only fault is not having realized that such a thing could happen, Albus. It was horrible, but Voldemort chose his own path. We had no way to stop him.'_

  
* * *

__

'Thurisaz?' Ginny asked, confused. 'What's Thurisaz, and what does it have to do with Tom?'

'Thurisaz. The rune of deceit and painful messages,' Eya, who now had a long white beard, replied. 'Each Keystone symbolizes a person. There should be billions in that pouch, but it only dumps out the ones who have been here. They act as Portkeys to where the person is at the moment. That's why you can't see yours- you're already where your soul is, and Keystones can't lead you back to your physical body. I have two because I've been here twice in the past day. One represents my body, and one, my soul. When you're ready, touching the rune on Riddle's Stone will take you to the Deathworlds.'

Ginny closed her eyes, the world reeling. The Deathworlds- she'd heard of them before. Professor Binns had mentioned them once, in a lecture about Enara the Innocent, who had been banished to them by a corrupt Minister of Magic. Fear stirred somewhere deep inside her, but she pushed it away. This was Tom she was going to find. This was Tom_, and she _was_ going to find him. There was no time to be scared. No time, none at all. With a flash of foresight, she knew. She had to leave. Now._

"Goodbye," she whispered, and touched the stone.

* * *

Something is coming. Something, or someone. Life. _The Unnamed know it, and they are hungry. They are always hungry. They swirl in spirals, howling, a tornado of faceless smoke. Pale fire sparks between them, cold, white, and their shrieks of anticipation grow louder and louder-_

And then they are still. Still. It is coming closer, she is coming closer-

Out of the darkness pours a soul.

With a screech, they crowd about her, obscuring her sight. reaching into the pillar of light at the core of her soul and twisting it, in some nameless way. They reach to make it dark, dark as death and death and blood and death but darker, and maybe maybe then their hunger will wane, will fade…

But through the Nothing they dwell in, a sound breaks in ripples. Bells, tolling away all vestiges of darkness, as they do once each season, four times each year… The Unnamed flee, shrieking anger that tears through the worlds from end to end. But they flee.

* * *

__

Ginny closer her eyes, willing herself to breathe again- normally_. Those _Things_ that had attacked her were gone, at least- at least she hoped they were- but the still-echoing bell-like sounds were oddly comforting, oddly reassuring. They reassured her. That and the thin golden cord stretching back to her body… So she pulled those comforts around her, armoring herself against the Unknown, and opened her eyes._

Grey. Grey, and grey. The expanse of paleness stretched in all directions, a colorlessness that was just a shade away from white, like old spiderwebs. So blank it hurt her eyes. Ginny glanced down, making sure she was fully clothed, still, and then cried out into the blankness.

'Tom? Tom! Come here! Tom!'

A note of barely-controlled desperation tinted her words. And then she was afraid, even more- her words lay still. Her voice did not carry through the empty space of this space. Panic quickened her breath, thudded in her heart. 'Tom! Please!' But the Nothing of the Deathworlds was just that- nothing. Not the familiar air it replaced, just nothing. Her voice was still, was dead.

She shut her eyes, once again. Tom_, she thought out into the darkness of her mind. _I'm sorry. I don't know how to do this. Please, Tom, _help! _Come back!_ Dread washed over her, pound her to the ground. _Oh, God, I knew I couldn't do this- I knew… I'm just a child. _Just a child!_ I'm not strong enough, you know I'm not! _Crying tearlessly, Ginny summoned up a vision of Tom as she'd known him, filling each detain in. Trying to understand. Why she loved him. Why he'd done this, done such an idiotic thing as to _snap_ his link to his body. Why she's been so bloody stupid as to try to wake him! She filled in the color of his eyes- green, but with those strange little slivers of yellow and brown and blue all shot through. The way he'd keep pulling at the cuffs of his shirts, trying to make himself look as immaculate as possible, as much as possible, only he could never pull it off 'cause of how his boot laces would always come untied unless he double-knotted them, and he didn't like the way that looked. The exact sound he'd make when he was annoyed with her. A kind of quiet snigger that never failed to annoy _her_. In retrospect, it was almost endearing. Now that she seemed to have lost him. Forever. Because just thinking about it wasn't going to help her. Not in the least._

Or was it? Because when she opened her eyes, looking for the cord to pull her back to Dumbledore to admit failure, there was more than just a cord there. There was more- a thread, so thin it barely deserved the name, reaching out from her navel to disappear into the whiteness. Translucent, fragile. Hope seized her. Tentatively, but hope was_ there. Without stopping to think about the danger of the Deathworlds- she was already there, was she not?- Ginny followed it. 'I hope you gave up way too soon, Ginny, love, because this looks like it's going to be your only hope,' she whispered into the Nothing._

'Anything you tell yourself is true here.' Thanking whatever God or Gods were Up There, Ginny closed her eyes for a second or two. 'Okay, girl, you can see really, really well. Starting… now,'_ she told the empty space in front of her. The world seemed to drop out from underneath her, and then, suddenly, jolted back. Not that everything was the same- Ginny's eyesight was now so strong she could, in some way she'd previously thought impossible, see the spaces between atoms. 'Right. Um, tone it down little?' she told the Nothing again, giving a sigh of relief when the world got a little closer to "normal," in terms of detail. She could see the second thread, like a diamond-shard, stretching off and off… She followed it. _

It ended in nothing.

Nothing. And not quite nothing- she could see something there, sort of, like the things you think you see out of the corner of your eye, but aren't there when you turn to give them a good look. It scared her, because either this was Tom or it wasn't, and if it was how would she get him back? and if it wasn't what would she do then? She prodded at the something-nothing, and her hand just went through like it was going through the Nothing. But she could see it, it was something. Slightly darker than the Deathworlds, but not much- washed out. And there were things beating at it, other not-quite-nothings, beating and beating at this thing. And she knew, whether or not it was Tom (Oh, please, please, Tom, let it be you-) she knew, whether or not it was Tom, it was in trouble. And she didn't know what to do.

* * *

__

White, white. And Gods help him but he was fading- oh, Gods. Whomever. Anyone who could help. Help. 

Help was getting nearer but he didn't know if Help could do anything because the minds were tearing tearing like he was food and it scared_ him and maybe if he was saved (oh please please) he would take all the chances he had missed things would be different if he lived oh God they would be different…._

* * *

__

She kept trying to touch this thing that was Tom again and again, and her fingers kept passing through. She realized she was crying, nearly screaming, but she seemed almost detached from herself because yes, the diamond string was splintering, or if not splintering fading. And her harsh hard animal-cries rent the Nothing and she still did not know what to do.

There was a tiny weak spot in the second string. It was there. She could see it. The diamond-light around it was unraveling, fading, and soon he would be lost and so would she. Because she knew it was Tom now- she felt the knowledge seeping through her fingers, and somehow it just made things worse. Because she still could not reach him. Her hand, seemingly of its own accord, drifted down to the string, settling just near the break, but so lightly. And it took a second for her grief- stricken mind to comprehend, but her hand had not passed through_. It was there. It had settled there. She could _feel_ the string as something physical. _Oh, please-_ she thought again, and closed her eyes._

She was envisioning the string growing stronger, brighter. She was praying, louder and louder in her own mind and in her thoughts, to every God she'd ever heard of, every Goddess, every power in hopes that somebody would hear and help. 'Oh, dammit, dammit!' _she whispered, feeling frantic, knowing that this was her last chance- not just was she _thought_ was her last chance, but The last chance. And so she prayed and prayed and tried to burn the weakness away with the light of her mind._

And a hand touched her shoulder.

She opened her eyes. Blinked. Her heart skipped a beat, or two or three- she had succeeded._ Tom was there. Tenuous, thinner than she'd ever seen him, pale, even for him, but her was there. With a startled cry, she jumped up and grabbed him round the shoulders, shaking him and hugging him both at once, too tired and scared to be embarrassed. 'Bloody hell, I thought I'd _lost_ you, you idiot!'_

'Oh, taken to cursing, have we? Little Ginny's only a Goody One Shoe, now?' But there was something suspiciously like a tear gathering in a corner of Tom's eye. Discreetly, Ginny ignored it.

'Um, Tom? How do we get back?'

* * *

__

If the Overworld had been as susceptible to humanity's smudges and fingerprints as the material world, Eya's Circle probably would have had tracks worn in it by the time Ginny got back from her ordeal. As it was, both Dumbledore and his teacher seemed to have aged a few decades. The minute Ginny popped back into the circle, toting Tom, those years dropped off so quickly Ginny found herself listening for the thud_ of them hitting the ground. Uncharacteristically, the first thing both Dumbledore and Eya did upon the return of their respective students was to give them hugs that produced a bright red flush on Ginny's face and drained Tom's of whatever color there was _left_ to drain. That is, the hugs came right after Tom had safely re-established his link to his body, relieving Ginny of the burden of extra years _she _carried. Dumbledore cleared his throat, then, a little awkwardly. For a second there was silence, the pause of a person with so much to think and say there was nowhere to start, and then, with a glance at Eya, Dumbledore flicked his wand and Ginny and Tom disappeared from the Overworld, gone back home._

Needless to say, it was a relief.

* * *

The cold stone of the Chamber of Secrets welcomed Ginny as she opened her eyes, half-expecting to see more of that horrible washed-out grey. But the colors were safe, bright and _good_, and she was home.

Home. And for a second a glitter caught her eye, like that of a diamond thread, reaching between her and the newly-awakened wizard. She smiled, reached for him. Just touched his skin. And for a second, everything was all right.


End file.
